During the past two decades Quality of Life Research has made tremendous progress in evaluating and assessing the life quality of people in many walks of life. This large branch of research moved away from strictly materialistic standards of measurement into complex models including cultural, political, religious, and health related indicators, to name just a few. Quality of Life Research increasingly tries to account for religious and cultural diversity. At the same time, it acknowledges that the perceived quality of life is bound to specific ways of perceiving, experiencing, and judging life – that is to say, to human hope for, valuation of, and envisioning the enhancement of life. The proposed project is prima facie closely related to this vibrant field of research. And yet:
What is submerged, what is implicit, and what is not sufficiently examined? Where can “Enhancing Life Studies” make a difference? Where do we want to shift scholarly attention?
Two aspects need to be noted. First, Enhancing Life Studies is interdisciplinary research strongly related to areas of life (like law, media etc.), Enhancing Life Studies wants to investigate the dynamic web of formative forces, values, needs, and aspirations that are deeply embedded in manifold forms in social life, human action, and the socio-cultural imaginary. Such research needs both the depth and breath of distinct disciplines of academic inquiry and communication among disciplines. Second, Quality of Life Studies look at religion first and foremost as just one factor in the set of quality-assessing factors. Enhancing Life Studies will, however, explore the spiritual laws operative in many spheres of life, of planning, thinking, and imagination beyond explicit religiosity. Based on a rich anthropology and a rich understanding of life they look at spiritual aspects in all human aspirations for an ongoing and dynamic enhancing of life.
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